As in the first Discworld game by Teeny Weeny, you play Rincewind, the worst
wizard on the Discworld. You unsuccessfully attempt to disarm an assassin's
bomb: you survive, but Death -- the Grim Reaper -- takes the brunt of the
blast. Death's absence soon leads to an unusually high number of zombies and
ghosts, forcing the wizards to deal with the problem. You are chosen to
gather the ingredients for a spell to summon Death, so the wizards can find
out why he's not doing his job. After this, you must convince Death to
return to work, and fill in for him for a bit, and even save him.

The characters are from Terry Pratchett's Discworld, a series of humourous
fantasy novels. The game is broken into five acts which nicely creates a tempo
for a strong, funny story. Each act consists of a collection of independent
quests. The plot is advanced at the beginning and end of each act. The rich
detail of the Discworld is filled as you quest hither and yon.

The lead voice (Rincewind) is again done by Monty Python's Eric Idle. There
is frequent use of meta-humour (Rincewind complaining about being in an
adventure game) which I feel was overdone. This, combined with a stronger
Python influence, diminishes the Pratchett quality of humour. There are still
many laughs to be had, but there are also many tedious stretches where the same
basic joke is overplayed. There is a lot of dialogue in this game.

The challenges are all part of the story and of the Discworld. Unlike the
previous game, the puzzles are actually soluble by means other than trial
and error. In fact, in several instances Rincewind gives you direct hints.
It's still not an easy game.

There is a good structure to the challenges. The quests in each act can usually
be pursued parallel to each other. Objects may have several uses, and they are
generally used in a natural way. There might be one or two questionable
challenges, but there are also several clever "lateral thinking exercises".

The game is presented in third person, with the standard scrolling background.
The backgrounds are nicely drawn cartoons, but I found the characters to be
animated in too simple a style -- maybe I'm just spoiled by the Josh Kirby
novel covers. The sound and music is well done, but there are a few places
where I found it hard to make out the dialogue because it was drowned out by
background sounds. The interface is the same as the previous Discworld: it's
easy to use, but suffers from a single "use" action on objects.

Discworld 2 is a step backward and a step forward from its predecessor.
The humour has less of Pratchett to it and is overplayed. The challenges are
much improved. It's a good game for adventurers, but it's a worthy must-have
game for Discworld fans.

Beware! Here are some spoiler-riddennotes on the game.
They're only recommended for people who have played the game and want to see
some of my rationale for my evaluations.